Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War is a 2018 superhero science fiction film and the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the sequel to The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Plot Warning: Spoilers Ahead! Thanos a.k.a. The Mad Titan, is the last survivor of Planet Titan, a planet that was destroyed by over-population. Thanos is now an intergalactic terrorist devoted to preventing over-population by murdering half of the population on every planet he visits. Thanos' biggest goal is to obtain all the Infinity Stones and harness their power through the Infinity Gauntlet. If he were to succeed he'd become an omnipotent god with the power to erase half the population of the universe just by snapping his fingers. After years of hiding in the shadows and relying on minions that kept on failing (Loki, Ronan, Nebula and Gamora), Thanos decided to go hunt for the stones himself. He first went to Xandar to get the Purple Power Stone, decimating the Nova Corps in the process. When Asgard was destroyed, Loki stole the Tesseract and kept it for himself while aboard Thor's spaceship which was en route to Earth for shelter. Thanos' ship intercepts the Asgardian spaceship and murders most of the Asgardians and tortured Thor to force Loki to surrender the Tesseract; during the attack the Asgardians sent an S.O.S. that was picked up by the Guardians of the Galaxy. Hulk tried to attack Thanos but was defeated quickly. Heimdall however sent Hulk to Earth via the Bifrost, which was activated through dark magic, resulting in Thanos killing Heimdall. Loki gave up the Tesseract begging Thanos to spare Thor, which Thanos does but he kills Loki right in front of Thor's face after he tried to kill him. Thanos crushed the Tesseract revealing the Blue Space Stone. With two Infinity Stones now, Thanos commanded his Black Order to go to Earth since there are two more Stones there and destroyed the Asgardian ship. Hulk crash landed at Doctor Strange's sanctum, transforming back into Banner., who then warned Doctor Strange of Thanos' impending arrival. Strange called Tony Stark for help and showed that he has the Green Time Stone which they must protect at all costs and requested to bring Vision as he had the Yellow Mind Gem. '''Unfortunately Vision ran off with Scarlet Witch and hasn't been seen in months. Tony told Banner that the Avengers split up during the Sokovia Accords conflict and Captain America is now a fugitive, when suddenly Thanos' minions arrive at New York looking for the Time Stone. Iron Man and Doctor Strange fend off the invaders while Banner tries to Hulk out, however Hulk refuses to come out, forcing him to stay out of the fight. Spider-Man comes to help but ultimately Strange is captured and taken to the Black Order's ship, which both Iron Man and Spider-Man managed to sneak into. Peter is given the Iron Spider armor, so that he can survive in space while Banner decides to call Steve Rogers for help. The Guardians of the Galaxy reach the Asgardian ship only to find nothing but rubble and corpses. They find Thor who survived the attack and bring him into their ship. Gamora fears that Thanos has finally decided to go after the Stones and tells everyone why he wants them. Thor befriends the Guardians but fears that they don't stand a chance against Thanos so they must go to Nidavellir so Thor could get a new weapon strong enough to stand up to Thanos. Rocket and Groot leaves with Thor while the rest of the Guardians go to Knowhere to warn the Collector, as they know that he has the '''Red Reality Stone. Meanwhile Spider-Man and Iron Man rescue Doctor Strange. The three form an alliance and decide to let the spaceship go back to Titan so they can confront Thanos. Back on Earth, Vision and Wanda have become a couple. One night they are attacked by the Black Order who almost rip the Mind Stone out of Vision's forehead but they are saved by Steve Rogers, who no longer considers himself "Captain America" and his Avengers team. The Avengers fly back to the their HQ and reunite with War Machine and Banner, who explains them what's going on. Vision suggests that Wanda's powers should be able to destroy the Mind Stone so Thanos can't get it, but it will result in Vision dying which Steve refuses to let happen because, as he puts it, "We don't trade lives". Vision concludes that perhaps if the Stone could be manually disconnected from his brain he could survive the removal of it. Steve suggests they go to Wakanda as their scientists should be capable enough to do that. Before the Guardians of the Galaxy reach Nowhere, Gamora asks Peter to promise her something: if Thanos captures her, he must kill her immediately. The group reaches the Collector's museum, but they're too late and Thanos already had the Reality Stone, which he used to effortlessly incapacitate the Guardians and capture Gamora. Gamora begs for Peter to kill her but Peter hesitates, he ultimately fires at her but the Reality Stone turns the bullets into bubbles. Thanos applauds Star-Lord for being willing to sacrifice his loved one before leaving with Gamora. Thor, Rocket, and Groot reach Nidavellir but the place was trashed by Thanos. They run into Eitri the Dwarf who explains that Thanos blackmailed the Dwarves into crafting the Infinity Gauntlet. Thor asks if they can repair the forge so that Eitri can make a new weapon, to which Eitri says it's possible but there's almost no chance unless they can reignite the star powering the forge. Thanos knows that Gamora found the location of the Orange Soul Stone and blackmails her by torturing Nebula. Gamora gave in and tells him that the Stone is on Planet Vormir. Thanos and Gamora leave to Vormir while Nebula escapes and contacts the Guardians of the Galaxy. On planet Vormir, Red Skull appears, he was made into the Soul Stone's guardian after he touched the Tesseract during WWII. The Soul Stone is on the planet but it can only be obtained by sacrificing one's most loved person. Gamora taunts Thanos that he has no one to sacrifice, but Thanos takes Gamora's hand and tears up before throwing his adoptive daughter to her death, earning him the Soul Stone. Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-man all arrive on planet Titan and quickly run into the Guardians of the Galaxy. After a quick misunderstanding everyone agrees to cooperate in order to rescue Gamora and keep Thanos away from the Time Stone. Back on Earth, the Avengers reach Wakanda and reunite with T'Challa and Bucky who is now completely cured from his brainwashing and known as the White Wolf. Shuri concludes that she indeed can remove the Mind Stone without killing Vision but it'll take a long time and Thanos' army will arrive any moment. Back on Titan, Doctor Strange uses the Time Stone to look into the future to check how the fight against Thanos could end. He sees over 14 million different scenarios, of which they only win one of them. Thanos arrives on Titan and has a brief talk with Doctor Strange about how Titan was destroyed by over-population and how his real goal is to save the universe from suffering the same fate as his species. Everyone fights against Thanos at once, Nebula joins the fight as well. The heroes pin down Thanos, put him under Mantis' control, and almost get the Infinity Gauntlet off his hand, but when Mantis discovers that Thanos killed Gamora, Star-Lord snaps and angrily attacks Thanos, causing Mantis to lose her control over the Mad Titan. On Earth, Thanos' forces arrive and begin a big fight with the Wakanda army, Black Panther and the Avengers. Since Banner can't Hulk out he uses the Hulkbuster during the fight. Thor and Rocket manage to repair the forge, Thor almost dies in the process but Eitri finished Thor's new weapon, StormBreaker, with Groot's help. StormBreaker revitalized Thor and he used it to summon the Bifrost and warp everyone back to Earth. With Thanos released from Mantis' control he overpowers the heroes. Iron Man has a brutal fight with the Mad Titan and is closer than everyone else from defeating him but Thanos mortally stab Tony, saying that Iron Man has earned his respect. Doctor Strange stops Thanos and offers him the Time Stone in exchange of sparing Tony's life, which Thanos agrees to. He takes the stone and leaves Titan. Tony is baffled at Strange's decision but Strange says "Now we're entering the End game". Thanos' forces get closer and closer to Vision, forcing him to join the fight before Shuri could remove the Stone, at the same time Thor, Rocket, and Groot arrive at Wakanda and with their help the Avengers cripple the Dark Order and most of the army. However Thanos finally reaches Wakanda as well. Vision sensed this and pleaded to Wanda to kill him and destroy the Mind Stone. Thanos makes his way to Vision. All of the heroes in Wakanda all make a last ditch attempt to stop the Mad Titan but he defeats all of them one by one. Wanda reluctantly destroys the Stone while keeping Thanos away. Thanos applauds her sacrifice but then uses the Time Stone to undo the Mind Stone's destruction and adds it to the Gauntlet. Now he finally obtained all the Infinity Stones. At the very last second Thor stabs Thanos' heart with StormBreaker. Thanos simply says "You should've gone for the head" and snaps his fingers. Thanos is transported to the Soul Stone dimension where he sees a vision of Gamora. She asks "What did it cost you?", and he answers "Everything". Back in reality the Infinity Stones all look drained of their power and the Infinity Glove is damaged. Thanos warps away and people begin to turn into dust and fade away, including many of the heroes. On Titan, everyone except Iron Man and Nebula fade away. Before Doctor Strange disappears from existence into dust he tells Tony "It was the only way". Peter Parker has a heartfelt moment with Tony and breaks into tears before disappearing as well. Nebula fears that Thanos has won; only the six original Avengers, Rocket, Ant-Man, and Nebula survived Thanos' universal wiping. Every other hero is gone. A tired and injured Thanos arrives at a peaceful planet and sits down to calmly watch the sunrise as he reflects on his victory. In the post-credits scene, Nick Fury and Maria Hill watch as countless people disappear from existence, including themselves. Before Fury disappears, he manages to take out a beeper and send a distress call. Fury disappears from existence, but the beeper says "Message Sent" and shows Captain Marvel's emblem. Why It Rocks # It is the ultimate culmination of everything that has happened in all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, all coming together to this one movie, which properly rewards the viewer for having watched all the other movies. # The film included almost every single one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Superheroes so far, except for Ant-Man, the Wasp, Valkyrie, Hawkeye, and the heroes that only appear in the TV shows. The movie manages to properly balance the screen-time every hero gets without coming off as over-bloated by having the heroes separated into different groups through out the movie. # It is also the 10th year anniversary celebration for the MCU. # Phenomenal fight scenes. They're high speed, high stakes, action packed, and even make clever usage of all the individual characters' unique abilities. # Excellent special effects. # Incredible soundtrack, composed by Alan Silvestri. # Lots of well-written drama involving lots of different characters, even Thanos. # Amazing pacing that's not too fast and not too slow. Everything flows perfectly. # It addresses some of the general criticisms that MCU movies keep getting: #* Formulaic plots: It follows a very different structure from other Marvel movies as the plot follows the different hero groups while the narrative is driven by Thanos' actions. #* Forgettable villains: '''Thanos is a very threatening villain, one of the few truly fantastic villains in the MCU and debatably the best of them. His goal actually makes sense if you think about it and, despite not being very likeable, he isn't completely despicable either. #* '''No stakes for the heroes: '''Thanos' menacing presence makes it genuinely hard to know if the heroes will win or not and there are several permanent deaths. # The post-credits scene is an excellent tease for '''Captain Marvel and her solo film. # Spectacular acting by every single actor and actress in the film, especially Josh Brolin as Thanos. # Like many of the other films, this one manages to perfectly blend together drama and character moments with comedy. # It was shot on many beautiful locations including Iceland, Philippines, Scotland, and Brazil. # Very suspenseful moments where it seems like very important characters are about to die. # The ending is fantastic. It's emotional, shocking and has an intense unexpected cliffhanger that actually works. # It is arguably one of the darkest Superhero movies to date, yet it doesn't forget to have humor and positivity that doesn't feel forced unlike many previous Superhero movies that tried too hard to be dark & gritty. # Peter Dinklage has a cameo as Eitri, the dwarf who forges Thor's new hammer, Stormbreaker. # There's a very strong theme through out the movie: "Is it worth sacrificing lives for the greater good? And if so, how many lives are you willing to sacrifice?" # Hilarious moments where Tony makes a Squidward joke at the beginning and where Star-Lord gives the Middle-Finger. # Thanos wins. While there have been other villains that were partially successful in their schemes before, Thanos is the first one who outright defeats the heroes. # Red Skull makes an appearance after Captain America: The First Avenger. Bad Qualities # The Hulk, who was featured in many posters and trailers, was only in the movie for a few scenes. #* It was later confirmed that Hulk would've had an arc were he became Professor Hulk during the third act of the movie but it was scrapped while Professor Hulk was introduced in the sequel. # The Black Order were painfully underutilized in the movie. Plus, one of the members from the comics, Supergiant, wasn't even in the movie. # Plot holes, like how the Black Order was able to locate Wakanda if it was supposed to be hidden. # There are errors in the film, like why it's daytime in New York when Nick Fury disintegrates if it's daytime in Wakanda also. Reception Avengers: Infinity War currently has a 84% critic rating and 93% audience rating, certified fresh for both, on Rotton Tomatoes. It has an overall 8.8/10 rating on IMDB. It has an overall rating of 9.3/10 on Letterboxd. Critics and audiences praised the movie for how it balanced such a large amount of characters from multiple movies, the portrayal of the villain Thanos, the intensity of action scenes, and the surprisingly dark ending which is completely unexpected for a Marvel movie. Some people would even call it the best MCU film yet. The movie has broken multiple Box Office records, including #1 movie opening of all time. It recently became the fourth film to ever cross the $2 billion mark, and it is the first comic book/superhero property and summer-released film to do so. Trivia * In the French dub of the film, Tony refers to Ebony Maw as Voldemort, the villain of the Harry Potter franchise. External Links * Avengers: Infinity War at the Internet Movie Database * Avengers: Infinity War on Rotten Tomatoes Category:2010s films Category:Disney films Category:Sequels Category:Adventure films Category:Tragedy films Category:American films Category:Box office hits Category:War films Category:Marvel movies Category:Action films Category:Live-action films Category:Drama Films Category:Superhero films Category:Modern Age films Category:Fantasy films Category:Comedy films Category:Sci-Fi films Category:Internet memes